Bottles Tell a Story to an Alcoholic.
The Mental State of an Alcoholic?
The bottles from behind the plywood were a win for me. As mentioned in part 5 these little things were coming together to form a clearer picture. The alcoholic within the family was being slowly forced to admit the problem.
The visualization of the bottles had an impact. I felt that this was now a mental war for her because there was no denying the fact. Her mental state had been challenged and there was a war between admission and guilt. With admission and guilt came the next step and that was to deal with the problems head on.
Two Steps Forward One Step Back. Doing a Drunk Tango.
This personal inner admission was seen by me. There was confusion in her face and behaviour. There was something going on and yet, there was no solution. There was nothing left now but to wait and to offer more solutions.
There had to be a way to move forward and seek help. There was one thing missing, one key element and that was hitting rock bottom. Everything I read and heard, alcoholics need to hit rock bottom.
I felt we were far, far away from rock bottom and she became a functional alcoholic. Keep in mind you are reading this on expanded time. My steps took days, weeks and months and then years. This journey was slow, painful and draining both emotionally and mentally. We all suffered, mostly in silence and sometimes verbally.
Things Deteriorated. Alcoholism and Fights.
The simple truth is that alcoholics need a reason to drink. They are happy, it calls for a drink, they are sad, it calls for a drink. If they are angry it calls for a drink and then comes the arguments.
This is where we headed down a very tough, long, winding road. As much as I thought we were heading in the right direction, things took a turn for the worse. Since my alcoholic was a drinker and a smoker, she slowly locked herself away each evening in the bathroom and began a brand new form of therapy.
The Smoking Drinking Alcoholic.
When things went sideways I knew we were in for a rough ride. The new cycle of drinking and smoking rose to another level. Each evening by about 5 or 6 pm I had a drunk spouse who barely held herself together.
She was working from home and usually had dinner ready by the time I got home. Some days she had dinner and other days it was frozen dinners or no dinner. This was fine for me but not so much for the kids. The nightly chat with her friends resulted in segregation from the family and this was hard on the kids. Where is mom, why is mom crying or yelling? Why is she fighting with you? Why didn’t she take us to my friends and the amusement park as she had promised and so on.
These were rough days, and even rougher was the fact that I hated to come home. I came home for the kids. They made me happy, call me selfish and any other name you would like, but if there were no kids involved… Well, I would probably have run like hell. It was about two and a half years in at this point and let’s say our mental health was not good.
Zsolt Zsemba 